Object Groups

This graphometer is marked "B. Pike Jr New York" and "Benjn Pike Jr 294. Broadway N.Y." The semicircle is graduated to 30 minutes, and read by silvered verniers at either end of the alidade to single minutes. Benjamin Pike Jr. (1809–1864) was in business in New York during the period 1843–1864. He probably imported this instrument from France. New, it cost $30. The vertical sights were reconstructed at the Museum.

The frame of this instrument is rosewood, while the arcs, cross bar, and sights are boxwood. The boxwood inset is inscribed "Made.by.John.Holbeche.for Capt Joseph.Swan.1738." John Holbeche advertised an Instrument Maker & Ship-Chandler at the Corner of the Hermitage in London.

This is marked "W. & L. E. Gurley, Troy, N.Y. 9296." Gurley described it as a Surveyor's Transit with two verniers to the horizontal limb. The horizontal circle is silvered, graduated every 30 minutes of arc, and read by opposite verniers to single minutes. There is a clamp and a tangent to the telescope axis. With tripod, this transit sold for $148. The serial number indicates that it was the 296th instrument that Gurley made in 1909.

This unusual mercury-in-glass thermometer has a squiggle in the stem. The milk-white back of the tube carries a scale that extends from -2 to +2.5 degrees graduated in tenths. This is marked “CENTIGRADE” and “R. FUESS, BERLIN-STEGLITZ” and on the back “Vol. bis 0=127” An auxiliary mercury-in-glass thermometer mounted upside down is marked “CENTIGRADE” and carries a scale that extends from -20 to +50 degrees. A metal band around both tubes is marked “No. 506.” The whole is encased in an outer glass tube.

Rudolf Fuess began in business in 1865, and moved to Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin, in 1891.

In the late 1790s at the behest of the American Philosophical Society, the American artist, Gilbert Stuart (1756-1828), began working on an oil portrait of Joseph Priestley, the famous English chemist and political dissident who had recently settled in the United States. Stuart’s half-length portrait showed Priestley wearing a white stock and dark vest and jacket, his head turned slightly to his right, his hair parted in the middle and hanging low on his neck.

Although he had received American funds for this project, Stuart sold the portrait to T. B. Barclay, an Englishman who visited his Boston studio. After taking the painting to his home near Liverpool, Barclay hired an English artist named William Artaud to complete the parts that Stuart had left unfinished. He also let Artaud make three oil copies of the portrait. One copy came into the possession of Priestley’s descendants in Pennsylvania, and it was from this that American artist, Albert Rosenthal (1863-1939), made this copy. The American Chemical Society presented to the Smithsonian in 1921.

Charles M. Mount, “Gilbert Stuart in Washington: With a Catalogue of his Portraits Painted between December 1803 and July 1805,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 71-72 (1972): 81-127, on pp. 103, 119.

Instrument dealers often described this type of instrument as a Palmieri apparatus, noting that it showed that the earth's magnetic field will induce a current in a rotating coil of wire. Luigi Palmieri was a physicist in Naples who, in the 1840s, developed an earth inductor with an elliptical ring that rotated around its longer axis. The Palmieri apparatus with a circular ring seems to have originated in the 1860s. This example belonged to Princeton University and may date from the 1870s, when Princeton established a School of Science. It came to the Smithsonian in 1961.

The "Universal Theodolite" that Heinrich Wild introduced in 1923, later known as the T2, incorporated a radically new design. It was also highly successful—about 100,000 of these instruments were eventually produced. This example is marked "Heinrich Wild Heerbrugg No. 218." Wild Heerbrugg, Inc. gave it to the Smithsonian in 1961, stating that it had had been delivered on April 12, 1924, and used until July 1960 in the Swiss Canton of Tessin. The serial number probably means that this is the 18th instrument of this sort made for the market.

This Wild theodolite has a steel frame, and weighs only 9.5 pounds. The horizontal and vertical circles are glass, and read directly to single seconds. The telescope magnifies 24 times and, equipped with stadia wires, it can be used for tachymetry. An auxiliary eyepiece lying alongside the telescope allows the user to read either circle without moving away from the station. By a combination of internal optics, each reading gives the mean of two opposite points on the circles.

The frame of this instrument is rosewood, while the arcs, brace, and vanes are boxwood. The frame is inscribed "Wm. G. Hagger Newpt R. Island For M–" and "364." The "364" inscribed on the back of the larger arc is probably a serial number, indicating that this instrument dates from around 1773.

William Guyse Hagger (1748-1832) was an instrument maker in Newport, Rhode Island, until the Revolution, when British troops occupied that city.

The Royal Institution was established in 1799 to advance scientific knowledge and promote the application of science to useful purpose. It was here that Humphrey Davy, young, brilliant and charismatic, began as an assistant in 1801. In 1803, following a series of popular lectures and important experiments, he was named professor of chemistry.

William Thomas Brande succeeded to the post in 1813 and later commissioned three images of the Royal Institution laboratory for his Manual of Chemistry (London, 1819). These were drawn by William Tite (1798-1873), a young English architect, and engraved by James Basire (1769-1822), a London artist. Plate I showed a floor plan of lecture hall and laboratory. Plate III showed the major pieces of apparatus. And Plate II showed an interior view of the laboratory. Our example, taken from the third (1830) edition of Brande’s book, is marked “Wm. Tite, del.” and " Is Basire, sc.” and “Published by John Murray, Albermarle Street, London, March 1830” and “PL II.”

The Royal Institution laboratory was, for a time, the best in Great Britain, if not the world. Brande explained that it comprised “all that can be required in the pursuit of experimental chemistry” and “may be well adapted to any public or private establishment. Most of the apparatus was furnished by “Mr. J. Newman, Philosophical Instrument-Maker to the Royal Institution, of Lisle-street, Leicester-square.”